


You're the Medicine and the Pain

by PadawanRyan



Category: Jonas Brothers
Genre: But Definitely Descriptions of Sex, Canon Compliant, F/M, Heartbreak, Incest, M/M, No Actual Sex Scenes, No Dialogue, Non-Explicit Sex, Sibling Incest, Slash, Underage - Freeform, lots of feelings, minor fluff, serious angst
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-15
Updated: 2019-04-15
Packaged: 2020-01-14 16:42:53
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,323
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18480229
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PadawanRyan/pseuds/PadawanRyan
Summary: Kevin was Joe’s and Joe was Kevin’s and that’s how it was supposed to be. Until Kevin decided that it wasn’t.Heartbroken when his older brother breaks up with him for someone else, Joe copes by dating various girls and sleeping with his younger brother (who may also have unrequited feelings for Joe).





	You're the Medicine and the Pain

**Author's Note:**

> Apologies in advance, I actually wrote this in a matter of only a couple hours. The idea came to me _yesterday_ , in fact, that it would be interesting to read a fic where Joe loved Kevin, Nick loved Joe, and nobody was able to have who they wanted (besides Kevin and Danielle). I know, I'm a bit of a masochist, since I knew that if I ever read that sort of fic, I'd probably be crying my eyes out the entire time. However, when I spent the day thinking about it, I decided that not only could I write that fic, but I could _also_ give it a happy ending.
> 
> This oneshot, in its mere 2,000+ words, spans a total of about twelve years, and there is mention of almost everyone Joe dated in that time, and even some of the people Nick dated in that time. There is mention of other things that happened in that time period, such as the band breaking up, Kevin having kids, etc. but one thing I didn't really mention at all was Joe with DNCE, just because the focus was on his relationships with partners or family -- in addition, I feel like I don't know enough about DNCE (except that their music _fucking slaps_ , I agree with Kevin that it's better than Nick's solo stuff -- sorry Nick!) to go into any detail on that part, so I chose to leave them out of the story altogether. Feel free to think about DNCE while reading, though!

The first time Joe experienced heartbreak was when his older brother broke up with him.

God, that sounded fucked up.

But for several years, Kevin was _his_ and nobody could take that away from them. He couldn’t even remember anymore how it started – it was so long ago – but he did remember that it was before they were famous, before they even recorded and released _It’s About Time_. The both of them had some girls in their lives at the time, but nobody meant more to them than each other. Kevin was Joe’s and Joe was Kevin’s and that’s how it was supposed to be.

Until Kevin decided that it wasn’t.

It was during their vacation in the Bahamas that Kevin met Danielle, and suddenly Joe’s world was turned upside down.

Kevin was _obsessed_ with the girl, there was no other word for it; he followed her everywhere and wanted to know everything about her. It was really all Joe’s fault to begin with, because he saw a pretty girl and thought to make Kevin jealous by hitting on her. His plan backfired when Kevin saw the girl’s face and well, if there was a such thing as love at first sight, Joe was certain that he had just witnessed it. Despite that, his heart didn’t quite break into two because Kevin was still his and nothing in the world could change that. Danielle was just a girl they met while on vacation, she wouldn’t even be in their lives after they went home.

Except that it turned out she was from Jersey – not very far from their Jersey home, in fact – and Kevin went so far as to track her flight home so that he could call her once she landed. Joe thought that maybe his brother was going a little overboard – stalker, much? – but he supposed that being in a committed relationship with _your brother_ might fuck up your understanding of how to be a normal person.

They continued to do their thing for a couple more months, because while Kevin was obsessed with Danielle, they weren’t exclusive.

Until Kevin (and Danielle, Joe supposed) decided that they were.

The night before Kevin asked Danielle to be his official girlfriend, he came to Joe’s room to explain to him that he was in love, and while nothing would ever match his love for Joe, his love for Danielle was _normal_ and _expected_ and nobody would fault him for it. He wanted the chance to pursue a relationship with her and be a _normal fucking human being_ (Joe might have embellished the cursing a bit in his own bitter memory) who didn’t sleep with his brother. Having seen their relationship evolve, Joe couldn’t fault Kevin that either.

So, he didn’t fight. He let Kevin go with a choked sob and nod as his heart shattered to pieces.

Joe attempted to cope by throwing himself into more intense relationships than the ones he had pursued with other girls in the past, but they floundered rather quickly. He thought that if he dedicated all of his time to someone that perhaps he would forget about Kevin, but it was clear when kissing Taylor that he wouldn’t stop comparing her to Kevin: her lips were too glossy, her hands were too small, she didn’t grind into him when they were making out, and despite that he didn’t want to use labels (he wasn’t gay), she didn’t have a penis and _that bothered him_. It took only a couple months before he panicked and called her up to end it, resulting in her crying and screaming and hanging up on him before even half a minute had passed.

As a result of his experience with heartbreak, it wasn’t difficult to notice in someone else.

That someone else being his younger brother.

Joe continued to try to move on and find other girls while coping with his own loss, but when he became involved with Camilla, it was clear that Nick was experiencing heartbreak too. At first Joe was certain that it had to do with Miley – they had been on the rocks for a little bit – but it became clear that the moodiness, which the rest of the family attributed instead to his illness, was the most evident when Joe was around. Or, specifically, when Joe _and Camilla_ were around, or when Joe even just talked about Camilla.

Nick was in love with him.

It was shortly after this revelation that Kevin proposed to Danielle and Joe’s heart went haywire. It was one thing when Kevin broke up with him to pursue a real, committed relationship with Danielle but it was another entirely when Kevin ensured that relationship with Danielle would be forever. Joe felt as though he had been holding onto hope, deep down in his heart, that Kevin would realize that nobody could compare to him and come back to him.

This was the catalyst that led to Joe’s relationship crumbling and falling apart. He couldn’t fault Camilla for becoming disinterested in him when he didn’t seem to care about her or _anything_ anymore.

This was also where he turned into the person he never wanted to be and exploited his younger brother’s feelings.

Nick knew that Joe didn’t love him, at least not the same way he loved Joe, and Joe knew this – he knew that Nick would take what he could get because he remembered being in Nick’s place, and desperate for Kevin to give him something, even if it wasn’t his heart. So, he found himself tumbling into bed with his younger brother, desperate to feel anything besides the pain and emptiness that came with Kevin’s engagement. While his relationship with Kevin never quite went all the way, he let Nick fuck him just so he could feel something physically just as much as emotionally. He needed the pain and the pleasure and _anything_ Nick could give him.

Having lost his virginity to his younger brother – god, that sounded even more fucked up – gave him the push toward trying again with another girl.

He had no problem sleeping with Ashley because sex wasn’t this sacred thing anymore, to be saved for someone you loved. He already gave his body to someone he loved – even if not romantically – so there was no problem with giving it to someone else who wanted it too. He didn’t stop his thing with Nick at first, letting the younger boy fuck him several times in a number of different positions after Kevin’s wedding reception, but soon told Nick the same thing Kevin had told him: he wanted to be a _normal person_ with a _normal relationship_ , and he was going to attempt to do that with Ashley because she was perfect.

In the end, his relationship with Ashley didn’t last much longer than his relationship with Camilla.

So, it didn’t take long before Joe was falling back into Nick’s bed.

This would continue for several more years. Every time Joe or Nick would pursue another relationship with another girl, they would stop – something he and Kevin never did when they were still involved with one another, because their relationship was very different – but as soon as these relationships inevitably floundered, Joe would find himself with Nick’s cock deep in his ass and suckling some dark hickeys all over the younger boy’s body. Eventually Joe wasn’t sure what he wanted in life anymore, so he spent a great deal of time in therapy (not divulging any details about his deeper problems), going out with Blanda, and ignoring his brothers.

Kevin knocked on his door one day and told him to get his head out of his ass (this time he wasn’t exaggerating in his memory) because he was hurting Nick.

Ha, what a hypocrite. It’s not as though Kevin seemed to care when he was hurting Joe.

It was kind of Joe’s fault, as a result of all this, that the band broke up. It was Nick who dealt the final blow that resulted in the cancelled album, cancelled tour, and the three brothers choosing to go separate ways. It wasn’t as though they would stop talking to one another – they were brothers, after all – but there was an emptiness that Joe felt when suddenly the three of them were not working together directly anymore.

The emptiness was filled when his first niece Alena was born.

Joe found love in being an uncle in a way that he never expected. He couldn’t have Kevin and by the time Alena was born, he had come to terms with this, and he would be lying if he said that Alena didn’t help him to get over his older brother. Where there was once heartache, he now felt his heart swell every time that baby smiled at him, every time that toddler laughed at him, every time he got to roll around and play with her because he was the _fun_ uncle and everyone knew it. He even teased Nick about it regularly enough.

Nick was a whole other problem, though.

He couldn’t stop this thing with Nick. Even when it no longer served to fill the void left by Kevin, he found himself craving his younger brother’s touch.

As usual, it stopped whenever each man attempted to pursue another relationship, because the both of them now wanted what their older brother had: normalcy. But the moment things would go down – between Joe and Gigi, between Nick and Olivia – Joe would again find himself in bed (or in the kitchen or on the couch or even bent over on the stairs) with his younger brother. He wasn’t in love with Nick, he knew that and Nick knew that, but he craved Nick’s touch and he knew that Nick would still take whatever he could get from Joe. Nick was very clearly still in love with Joe, and Joe was being selfish by not allowing Nick to get over him.

Everything changed when Joe met Sophie.

Because finally he could understand exactly what had happened with Kevin and Danielle.

It was a slow start to things, as he and Sophie messaged over Instagram, but eventually he found himself craving her attention and wanting nothing more than to spend time with her. She was several years younger than him, but she had the same sense of humour and he found that he could relax with her in a way that he hadn’t been able to with any other girl before. As things progressed between them, Joe found himself overcome with love again for the first time since Kevin, and it both shocked him to his core and made him feel positively _giddy_.

Nick, however, _was not_.

Although he had stopped sleeping with Nick again when he began dating Sophie, as per the norm between them, he felt the need to sit Nick down and actually discuss proposing to her, because he felt that it was important that Nick understand that _this was the end_. It didn’t escape him that he had now become Kevin in the story of Kevin and Joe – sitting down his younger brother to end that scandalous, clandestine relationship between them – so he tried to be as empathetic as possible, knowing what was likely to be going through Nick’s brain. 

It came to no surprise that Nick wasn’t giddy for him, but Nick, just like Joe with Kevin, didn’t fight. He accepted that his brother was happy and this was it.

Joe attempted to put the whole “you’ll find someone great” spiel on him because well, Nick was great, so _of course_ he would find someone great. Nick didn’t seem to believe him but appreciated the effort on Joe’s part anyway, and Joe could tell that Nick threw himself into godfather duties with Valentina – not unlike the way Joe had devoted himself to Alena (though he’d be lying if he said he wasn’t equally as devoted to Valentina) – in order to get over Joe as he went through with his proposal to Sophie. It was crazy how many parallels he could draw between his own experiences and those of his brothers.

When Nick finally revealed to them that he was dating Priyanka, everyone was happy and nobody was surprised – it was inevitable that the two of them would end up together, and Joe was just impatiently waiting to see it actually _happen_ so he could know that Nick was happy.

The proposal came so soon afterward that Joe wasn’t sure at first if Nick was maybe just desperately chasing what both Kevin and Joe had. He was happy for Nick and he congratulated _the fuck_ out of him, because what else would he do? But he also sat Nick down and asked him if he was sure about what he was doing. Nothing warmed his heart more than seeing how his younger brother’s face positively _glowed_ as he went on about Priyanka and what he wanted with her.

The year was filled with so much excitement that Joe finally felt that everything was right with the world.

The band got back together – and he still couldn’t understand _how_ the fuck it happened, but it was all thanks to Nick (in addition to some mandated group therapy while working on their documentary) – and began working together on new music in ways that they had never done before. Nick’s weddings came and went – yes, _weddings_ (both with Priyanka, don’t get your panties in a bunch) – while he and Sophie continued to plan theirs, and the world rejoiced when they finally made their reunion public. Nothing could be better than this, and god, how would everything have been different if he _had_ fought for Kevin all those years ago?

The first time Joe experienced heartbreak was when his older brother broke up with him.

It only took him twelve years to realize that it was the best thing to ever happen to him.


End file.
